Extreme Right Parties Research Articles

Not All Parties are Treated Equally Journalist Perceptions of Partisan News Bias

ABSTRACT Journalists and news media in Western democracies appear to be under increasing fire for having an alleged partisan bias. This study joins the increasing number of studies on partisan news slant, and focuses on the central actors in the news-making process, namely journalists themselves. Drawing on unique survey evidence on 233 Belgian and Dutch journalists in 2018, this study explores whether and which journalists perceive their news outlets to be biased. Despite their aim to produce impartial coverage, we find that most journalists believe that their news outlet favors some parties over others. In particular, journalists feel that center parties are favored, while parties on the fringes, and especially extreme-right parties, are somewhat disadvantaged. Also, it shows that journalists working for the public broadcaster perceive their outlet to be more impartial than their colleagues working for commercial outlets. Journalists’ political leaning does not seem to influence their perceptions of partisan bias, but journalists do feel that their outlet is biased to accommodate its “imagined audience”. For instance, those who perceive their audience as more right-wing than the general public, feel that their medium advantages right-wing parties too.

Refugee reception, extreme-right voting, and compositional amenities: Evidence from Italian municipalities

We use data from Italy to study the political and social impact of a refugee reception policy (SPRAR) directly managed by local governments, whose features recall the conditions of the contact theory (Allport, 1954). Instrumental variables estimates indicate that municipalities that opened a refugee center between the 2013 and 2018 national elections experienced a change in the vote shares of extreme-right parties that is approximately 7 percentage points lower compared to municipalities that did not open a refugee center. We document that the positive impact of SPRARs on “compositional amenities” (i.e., local schools) and population growth allows explaining the negative impact on anti-immigrant prejudice. Finally, we provide evidence of spillovers in prejudice reduction in neighboring municipalities without a SPRAR.

A Spatial Approach to the Study of the Electoral Resurgence of the Extreme Right in Southern Spain

This study analyzes at a local level (i.e. census tract) the spatial patterns and main contextual factors related to the electoral resurgence of the extreme-right party (VOX) in Southern Spain (Andalusia) in 2018 and 2019. The 2019 electoral data was associated with the percentage of total foreign-born population, degree of territorial concentration of economic migrants, average income level, percentage of elderly people, urban/rural areas and the percentage of vote for VOX in 2018 (t − 1). We used a global and local spatial autocorrelation analysis to detect the spatial patterns of the vote for VOX and a spatial Durbin regression model to assess the role of contextual variables and spatial effects. The results underline the importance of space in modelling the vote for VOX and point to the existence of a spatial diffusion process. Previous electoral behavior and the urban milieu also play key roles in explaining the vote for VOX. Moreover, the territorial concentration of economic migrants is negatively related with the vote for VOX, which illustrates the positive character of interracial contact.

Political Potentials, Deep-Seated Nativism and the Success of the German AfD

The German populist radical right party “Alternative for Germany” (AfD) was founded amid various economic and political crises. This article argues that the electoral success of this political challenger, however, is rooted in more than the upsurge of populist resentments born out of these crises. Integrating theories about the activation of attitudes with arguments about the effects of exposure to local political contexts, I contend that the electoral success of the AfD reflects the mobilization of deep-seated nativist sentiments. To test these propositions, I draw on a large panel dataset of the AfD’s electoral returns at the municipal level (N = 10,694) which I link to pre-crises data on the marginal success of extreme-right parties. Exploiting variation between municipalities located within the same county (N = 294), I estimate a series of spatial simultaneous autoregressive error models by maximum likelihood estimation. The results show that the success of the AfD is rooted in the local prevalence of nativist sentiments that date prior to the crises that fomented the formation of the challenger party–an effect that becomes stronger in the course of the radicalization of the AfD. I further demonstrate that the populist right AfD is best able to broaden its electoral appeal among local communities with an extreme-right sub-culture, particularly in Eastern Germany. This suggests that even small extreme-right networks can act as a breeding ground for the populist right and help spread xenophobic and nativist sentiments among citizens.

Understanding the Emergence of Extreme Right Parties in Portugal in the Late 2010s

Abstract After more than four decades of immunity to the extreme-right party family, this Portuguese exceptionalism came to an end after the electoral breakthrough of the Chega party in the 2019 general elections. Drawing on a case study approach, this article discusses different explanations for the timing of Chega’s emergence in Portuguese mainstream politics in the late 2010s. Considering this late success, Portugal can be seen as a crucial case study to assess the available theories. This investigation employs a popular schema that implies the distinction between explanations focused on ‘demand-side’ factors (the protest voting thesis and the public salience of immigration) from those concerned with ‘supply-side’ factors (the spatial competition theory and internal supply factors). Through the employment of the congruence method, this article highlights the interaction between party-centric factors as a more appropriate explanation for understanding the timing of Chega’s electoral breakthrough than demand-side approaches.

Political and ideological normalization: quality of government, mainstream-right ideological positions and extreme-right support

AbstractThis article aims to explain the variation in the electoral support for extreme-right parties (ERPs) in Europe. The extant literature on the far-right party family does not answer this question specifically with regard to the extreme-right variants for two main reasons. Firstly, theories did not expect the electoral success of these parties in post-war Europe due to their anti-democratic profiles and association with fascism. Secondly, despite the fact that they acknowledge the differences between the parties under the far-right umbrella – namely, the extreme and the radical – they normally do not take these differences into account, and if so, they focus on the radical-right parties. This article shows that electoral support for ERPs is associated with low quality of government and highly conservative mainstream-right parties. The former creates political legitimization for anti-democratic parties and the latter ideological normalization of extreme right.

Self-Defense Mechanisms of Democracy during the Crisis: The Baltic States in Comparative Perspective

Theoretically embedded in studies on militant democracy, the study offers a comparative analysis of the use of self-defense mechanisms of democracy during the Coronavirus Crisis in Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The research aims to identify what anti-democratic measures were adopted to influence the sovereignty of the political nations and which served to either strengthen, maintain or undermine that sovereignty. Although neo-militant democracy goals prevailed in the Baltic states’ pre-pandemic political and legal structures, the pandemic-induced measures resulted in variation. In Estonia, the restrictions put the sovereignty of the political nation in jeopardy. Simultaneously, in Lithuania and Latvia, the sovereignty of the political nations remained unthreatened. In Estonia, the electoral successes and increase in support for the extreme-right political party Conservative People’s Party of Estonia turned conducive to the movement from neo- towards quasi-militant democracy. In Lithuania and Latvia, the extreme groupings did not receive comparable support and could not initiate an anti-democratic turn.

Parliamentary Representation in Six European Right-Wing Sovereignist Parties: Resemblance or Innovation?

AbstractThe appeal to the re-appropriation of national sovereignty has recently become the unifying trait of a heterogeneous group of right-wing parties. The underlying reasoning behind this claim is that globalised elites ignore the needs of the people—defined as a restricted and ethnically homogeneous group of natives—they are supposed to represent. After defining the perimeter of this party cluster, including populist, national conservatives and extreme-right parties, this article explores the extent to which the adoption of similar political platforms might also be reflected in a convergence of parliamentary party articulations. A qualitative account of the evolution of parliamentary representation in a few right-wing parties from Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands shows that a two-way street of institutionalisation might be at play in the complex balance between uncompromising grassroots components and a more pragmatic institutional component.

From Trivialized Neo-Nazis to Parliament: Explaining the Electoral Success of the Extreme Right Party ĽSNS in Slovakia

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes factors facilitating the electoral success of the Slovak extreme-right party ĽSNS by examining contextual explanations of electoral support during in 2010–2016 national elections. Conducting regression analysis on aggregated data, we find that, during the 2010 and 2012 elections, the local presence of a Roma minority was important, and in the 2016 elections the party achieved success in more economically deprived micro-regions. These changes indicate that factors linked to perceived ethnic threat are insufficient to explain the electoral breakthrough of the party. We argue that the breakthrough was possible thanks to their increasingly anti-elite communication along with favorable contextual circumstances.

The Electoral Success of the Extreme Right: Is the Presence of a Minority Important?

Anti-minority rhetoric as an almost universal feature of extremeright parties is often analytically and empirically linked to their electoral success. This article tests the link between the presence of an outgroup and the vote for the extreme right in an attempt to explain the electoral success of the first openly anti-system extreme-right party to enter the Slovak parliament in 2016. A multilevel approach is used to analyse the connection between Roma presence in a municipality and extreme-right support while controlling for the individual characteristics of voters. Analysis using exit-poll data covering 161 municipalities and 20 128 voters reveals no relationship between the presence of Roma in a municipality and support for the extreme right. A partial exception seems to be observed for older voters and the university-educated, who are generally the least inclined to far-right support. Interaction effects suggest that, for these groups, Roma presence might be connected to a higher probability to cast a vote for the extreme right. However, a notably higher chance of voting for the extreme right was associated with young, male, manual labourers and people without university education.

Immigration and far-right voting: evidence from Greece

In this paper, we analyze the impact of immigration on Greek politics over the 2004–2012 period, exploiting panel data on 51 Greek regional units. We account for the potential endogenous clustering of migrants into more “tolerant” regions by using a shift-share-imputed instrument, based on their allocation in 1991. Overall, our results are consistent with the idea that immigration is positively associated with the vote share of extreme-right parties, though the effects appear to be stronger during the Greek fiscal crisis. This finding appears to be robust to alternative controls, sample restrictions and different estimation methods. We do not find supportive evidence for the conjecture that natives “vote with their feet,” i.e., move away from regions with high immigrant concentrations. We also find that the political success of the far-right comes at the expense of “Leftist” parties, thereby rejecting the idea that migration divides the society into different camps. Importantly, our analysis suggests that labor market concerns play a significant role in shaping native attitudes toward immigration.

The 2019 Portuguese general elections

The 2019 Portuguese general elections have led to the formation of another minority government of the Socialist Party. Right-wing parties suffered a resounding defeat. The election had two key consequences. First, after four years of contract parliamentarism with an extreme-left party, the Socialists returned to their historical position of pivotal party in the system. Socialist leader Costa refused to replicate alliances with parties to his left. Second, the 2019 election witnessed the emergence of three new parties, Chega, Iniciativa Liberal and Livre. The election of Chega marks a watershed moment in Portuguese democratic history, as for the first time an extreme-right populist party has gained representation in the country.

Hungarian right-wing populism: nothing is what it seems

12 | International Union Rights | 27/1-27/2 FOCUS | RIGHT-WING POPULISM, TRADE UNIONS, AND FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS Hungarian right-wing populism: nothing is what it seems Since the rise of Donald Trump and the European far-right anti-foreigner, xenophobic movements, the question has been repeatedly asked in Hungary and abroad: what can the traditional institutions of the left do to counter the far right, What should the trade unions do against a tendency also spreading among workers? The far-right Party of Truth and Life (MIÉP) was already in the parliament (5,5 percent of votes in 1998), was followed by the emergence of extreme-right party Jobbik at the beginning of this millennium. At its foundation, the party described itself as ‘a principled, conservative and radically patriotic Christian party’, whose ‘fundamental purpose’ is the protection of ‘Hungarian values and interests’. It marked a significant move and brought a growing player to the surface, but without parliamentary representation. In 2007 the Hungarian Guard was established with the aim of standing for the physical, spiritual and intellectual selfdefence of Hungarians, in fact for filling the place of the ‘beaten army’ and for taking action against criminals who terrorise Hungarians, disbanded by court ruling in January 2009. An overview published on Wikipedia states that ‘[s]ince 2014 Jobbik has started to re-define itself as a conservative people’s party and changed the controversial elements of its communication. According to the party’s Manifesto on the guidelines of a future government, Jobbik represents all Hungarian citizens and people and aims to build a modern national identity, while rejecting the chauvinism of the 20th century. After the Hungarian parliamentary elections on 8 April 2018, the party polled 1,092,806 votes, securing 19.06 percent of the total, making them Hungary’s second largest party in the National Assembly’. Since the existence of Jobbik, it has been quarantined by the left and liberal parties, while contested by the party of Viktor Orbán, Fidesz. In the fight for power, for right and conservative voters over the past years we have observed a continuous shift of Jobbik to the centre, while Fidesz moved to win over far-right voters. As a consequence in 2018 Jobbik split – the Our Homeland Movement (Mi Hazánk Mozgalom) was founded by former Jobbik Vice-President and other ‘dissidents’ claiming that the party’s leadership moved away from its radical roots. Today, with the third consecutive Fidesz government since 2010, the declared far-right party Jobbik is understood as a political formation leaning to the right-centre according to its ‘popular party’ strategy, while Fidesz is seen as increasingly moving to the right. Since the announcement of the slogan ‘one camp, one flag’, the strategy of Fidesz has been not to leave uncontrolled space for other right-wing actors. The strategy of the ‘central force’ announced in 2010 was complemented by their statement that Fidesz needed the presence of a far-right party (formerly Jobbik, now the Our Homeland) to ensure its own position and image. However, its desire for control has not changed. Fidesz is an active player in the far-right scene and discourse: they take over the themes, messages catchwords and symbols of the far right, and are involved in shaping the processes. There are two extreme emotions triggering cohesion of extreme-right supporters: fear and hope. What are the reasons, key tools for holding the voting base of right-wing populism together and used with great success – by the Hungarian prime minister? ‘Nationalism’: like the right-wing populist political groups all around in Europe, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán refers to the loss of ‘national sovereignty, autonomy’, stressing that democracy is overridden by international powers (Brussels, IMF, multinationals, big banks) by unelected and powerful supranational bodies. In the enemy image, the ‘internal enemy’ is the left and liberals, financed by ‘Soros’ serving these forces. With this, a sense of fear is created, whereby the hope is provided by the governing forces. The ‘national government’ promise to reinforce the nation state restore popular sovereignty, protect democracy, and the charismatic leader at the forefront telling the only truth, is the only one...

From Vergangenheitsbewältigung to Violence: Unravelling the Paradoxes of the German Extreme-Right

This paper seeks to understand the reasons for the German extreme-right’s successes and failures, particularly examining the inter-relations between political parties and underground movements. It also places a particular focus on German reunification, especially the wave of East German anti-immigrant and asylum seeker violence that emerged from 1991 to 1993. Furthermore, it argues that economic factors are not enough to understand this and other subsequent German extreme-right violence, and that structural factors, such as police and intelligence inadequacies, as well as psychological factors are vital. The first section explores why xenophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments remained high in Germany despite extensive denazification, and the reasons for extreme-right party failures to exploit this. The second section examines why this sentiment has often been violently expressed. The third section looks at the relations between violent underground groups and political parties, concluding that these connections have ultimately weakened the German far-right.

Waking Up the Golden Dawn: Does Exposure to the Refugee Crisis Increase Support for Extreme-Right Parties?

Does exposure to the refugee crisis fuel support for extreme-right parties? Despite heated debates about the political repercussions of the refugee crisis in Europe, there exists very little—and sometimes conflicting—evidence with which to assess the impact of a large influx of refugees on natives’ political attitudes and behavior. We provide causal evidence from a natural experiment in Greece, where some Aegean islands close to the Turkish border experienced sudden and drastic increases in the number of Syrian refugees while other islands slightly farther away—but with otherwise similar institutional and socioeconomic characteristics—did not. Placebo tests suggest that precrisis trends in vote shares for exposed and nonexposed islands were virtually identical. This allows us to obtain unbiased estimates of the electoral consequences of the refugee crisis. Our study shows that among islands that faced a massive but transient inflow of refugees passing through just before the September 2015 election, vote shares for Golden Dawn, the most extreme-right party in Europe, moderately increased by 2 percentage points (a 44 percent increase at the average). The finding that mere exposure to the refugee crisis is sufficient to fuel support for extreme-right parties has important implications for our theoretical understanding of the drivers of antirefugee backlash.

Finding the Warmth of Other Suns? Refugee Reception, Extreme Votes and Hate Crimes

How does the reception of refugees affect the electoral performance of extreme-right parties? Does the effect change across areas with heterogeneous access to broadband internet? Using data on Italian refugee centers and an instrumental variable approach based on pre-existing group accommodation buildings, we show that hosting refugees leads to a decrease in extreme-right parties' vote shares. We estimate that municipalities that opened a refugee center between the 2013 and the 2018 national elections experienced a change in the votes shares of extreme-right parties approximately 7 percentage points lower than municipalities that did not open a refugee center. The negative effect is stronger for municipalities that opened smaller refugee centers and with lower access to broadband internet.

Is the spectre of Weimar still haunting?: 'Militant democracy' and party proscription in contemporary Germany

The way in which democratic states react to political parties with anti-democratic goals is a subject of major interest and debate in the study of political extremism. Previous authors have coined the term ‘militant democracy’ for states that employ severe restrictions against extremist parties. In this regard, Germany is widely perceived as the prototype of a 'militant democracy'. The so-called ‘wehrhafte Demokratie ’ scheme within the Basic Law consists of provisions such as Art. 21(2), providing the possibility of banning a party. However, recent developments in the German practice of party-banning challenge the outright classification of Germany as a ‘militant democracy’. Based on a case study of the failed attempt to ban the extreme-right party NPD, this study investigates the question as to what extent the ‘ wehrhafte Demokratie ’ scheme in Germany can still be characterised as militant in application. It claims that the 2017 judgment of the Federal Constitutional Court represents a paradigm shift in German party-banning, calling for a re-classification of Germany as an ‘immunised democracy’. The Court has moved towards a more cautious and restrictive interpretation of Art. 21(2), displaying an increasing trust in the German democratic system to contain its enemies without having to employ its sharpest legal weapons.

Rising Islamophobic Discourses in Europe and Fight Against Islamophobia on the Basis of International Organizations

Abstract European Civilization was built on the concepts of multiculturalism, tolerance, and dialogue but in the post-Cold War period, without considering these concepts, some European politicians, scientists, and the press have associated concepts of conflict, terror, disintegration, exclusion, and assimilation with Islam. Anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim attitudes are viewed as a new coherent ideology to replace anticommunism following the post-collapse period of the Soviet Union. Thus, a new enemy image and an exclusionist and alienating discourse aimed especially at Muslim societies in Europe were created after the 1990s. Subsequently, this new discourse diffusing across the European continent is referred to as “Islamophobia”. Gradually Muslim immigrants are perceived to be the number one fundamental cause of politic, economic and social issues in European countries so Islamophobic discourses have intensified following the 90s. The aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the actions of terror organizations claiming to commit their attacks in the name of Islam in the world -and especially in Europe- have contributed to the spread of Islamophobia across Europe. Extreme-right wings in pursuit of taking advantage of all these negative circumstances for political gain attempted to find public ground by reflecting Islam as a religion of violence and Muslims as ‘terrorists.’ In this article, it is argued that concrete Islamophobic discourses erode some certain values such as human rights, democracy, plurality and multiculturalism, which Europe was established on these. It is also showed that actions of various extreme-right parties and other wings in different European countries accelerate this process. Policies adopted by international organizations to fight against Islamophobia will be analysed and the problems encountered in these efforts will also be presented.

Thinking globally, acting locally

AbstractThe aim of this study is to show how trans-national right-wing linguistic strategies and global xenophobic attitudes are reworked at national levels, and how, as a result, specialized country- and culture-specific coercion and legitimization strategies arise. Using a detailed, quantitative-qualitative method of analysis, we look at the Greek Cypriot extreme-right party ELAM to see how the party’s anti-migration rhetoric construes any foreign presence as threat, by proximizing it linguistically as ‘invasion.’ This strategy allows the conflation of the current ‘Other’ (migrants) with archetypical adversaries, such as Turkey. Indeed, anchoring the migration issue in the main national narrative, i.e., the long-standing Cypriot conflict, gives their xenophobic language conceptual coherence and strengthens its textual cohesion. In particular two figures of speech are the basis of this invasion script, the wordmetanasteftiko‘the immigration phenomenon’ conceptualized as thekipriako(the Cyprus problem, i.e., the political division of the island). This parallelism opens the way for a number of inferences, while it also enables a conceptual shift from therealphenomenon known asglobalizationandmulticulturalismto the imagined idea of a (white/Western) genocide. Data include comments responding to ELAM followers’ YouTube videos and mainstream press representations. Methodology includes corpus linguistics and discourse analysis focused on the fundamental metaphors found in the data such asmigration as unbearable weightandmigration as dirt.

Mainstream Party Strategies Towards Extreme Right Parties: The French 2007 and 2012 Presidential Elections

The electoral success of extreme right parties (ERPs) has attracted a disproportionate number of studies. By contrast, research into the mainstream parties’ reactions to ERPs has engendered little interest. With few exceptions, the effects of the centre-right parties’ strategic options in electoral competitions with ERPs remain unexplored. To overcome this shortcoming, this investigation examines the strategies employed by the French centre-right party – Union pour un Movement Populaire (UMP) against the Front National in the 2007 and the 2012 presidential elections by focusing on the topics of immigration and integration. This study suggests that the adoption of accommodating approaches in both elections was followed by distinct levels of success in 2007 and 2012. Drawing on a qualitative comparative analysis, this article explores three hypotheses in order to enhance understanding of the divergent effectiveness of the UMP’s accommodative approaches in the elections studied.